Marjorie Dean, High School Senior. Chase Josephine
knew why Marjorie had lingered in the school building when the afternoon session was over. They were among the first to whom she confided the news of yesterday’s loss. She had announced to them her intention of apprising Lucy Warner of the unpleasant fact, and Jerry in particular was curious to know what effect the disclosure would have upon Lucy.
“I’m glad that’s over.” Marjorie gave a little sigh. “It was pretty hard for me to tell Lucy. It served me right for being so careless, though.”
“What did she say? Was she mad?” Curiosity looked forth from Jerry’s round face.
“No; that is, not exactly. Still, she wasn’t very well pleased,” admitted Marjorie. “I hope someone finds the letter yet and brings it to me. But where are the rest of the girls?” She decided that a change of subject was in order. Lucy’s too-evident umbrage had hurt her considerably. She therefore preferred to try to forget it for a time at least.
“They’ve gone on ahead,” informed Constance. “Muriel had an errand to do in town and so had Susan. Irma and Harriet went with them. They are to meet us at Sargent’s at four-thirty.”
“Then we had better be starting for there.” Marjorie consulted her wrist watch. “It’s ten after four now. Let’s hurry along. Did either of you have a chance to talk with Veronica after school?” she continued as they set off for Sargent’s three abreast.
“I saw her for a moment in the locker room,” replied Constance. “She seemed to be in quite a hurry. She smiled at me but didn’t say anything. Then she put on her hat and left the locker room without stopping to talk to any of us.”
“I suppose she has to go straight home from school and help Miss Archer’s sister,” surmised Jerry. “I’d hate to have to study all day and then go home and shell peas or scrub floors or answer the doorbell or do whatever had to be done. I guess we ought to be thankful that we don’t have to earn our board and keep.”
“I ought to be doubly thankful,” agreed Constance seriously. “Not so very far back in my life I had no time to play, either. Every once in a while when I feel specially self-satisfied, I take a walk past the little gray house where I used to live before my aunt played fairy god-mother to all of us. It makes me remember that my good fortune was just a lucky accident and takes all the conceit out of me.”
“Now that we are seniors I believe we ought to make it our business to do all we can for the girls in school who aren’t able to have the good times we do,” stated Marjorie soberly. “It seems to me that we might band ourselves together into some sort of welfare club. If we do well with it we can pass it on to the next senior class when we have been graduated from Sanford High.”
“Hurrah!” Jerry waved a plump hand on high. “That’s the talk. Every since last year I’ve had that club idea on my mind. Let’s hurry up and organize it at once. For that matter we can do it this afternoon; the minute we meet the girls at Sargent’s. There will be seven of us to start with. Then we can decide on how many more girls we’d like to have in it.”
“Oh, splendid!” exclaimed Marjorie, the sober expression vanishing from her pretty face. “Once we organize a club and get it well started, who knows what distinguished members we may become.”
As the three girls swung blithely along toward Sargent’s the incessant flow of conversation that went on among them betokened their signal interest and enthusiasm in the new project.
“Here we are,” proclaimed Jerry noisily to the quartette of girls seated at a rear table in the smart little shop. “Strictly on time, too, or rather five minutes ahead of it. How long have you been here?”
“Oh, we just came.” It was Muriel Harding who answered. “Maybe we didn’t hustle our errands through, though. Sit down and we’ll order our ice cream. Then we can talk.”
“The time has come, the walrus said,
To talk of many things,”
quoted Jerry mysteriously as she seated herself.
“Well, Walrus, what’s on your mind?” giggled Susan Atwell, promptly applying Jerry’s quotation to the stout girl herself.
“I’m no walrus. I don’t consider that I resemble one in the least,” retorted Jerry good-humoredly. “I’m sorry you don’t recognize a quotation when you hear one. But I forgive you, giggling Susan.”
The approach of a white-clad youth to take their order interrupted Jerry’s discourse. The instant the order had been given she continued: “Girls, as I just said, the time has come.”
“For what?” demanded Harriet, smiling.
“Marjorie will answer that. She’s the real promoter of the enterprise. I am merely the press agent. Go ahead, little Faithful.”
Marjorie’s cheeks grew rosy at the broadly-implied compliment. “You’re a goose, Jerry,” she affectionately chided. “You tell the girls about it.”
“I’d rather be a goose than a walrus,” grinned Jerry. “As for telling; let Marjorie do it. No; I mean, I’d rather you’d spring it on them. Oh, what’s the use? Slang and I are one.” Jerry sighed an exaggerated sorrow over her vain effort at eliminating inelegant English from her vocabulary.
“It must be something very important,” put in Susan, with a derisive chuckle, “or Jeremiah would never resort to slang.”
Jerry’s grin merely widened. “Go ahead and tell them, Marjorie. Hurry up.”
“It’s just this way, children.” Marjorie leaned forward a trifle, her brown eyes roving over the little group of eager-faced listeners. “For a long time Jerry and I have had the idea of forming a club. We talked of it last year, after Christmas, and again after we gave the operetta. But you know what a hard year we had over basketball, and then so many of us became sick that somehow the club idea was put away and forgotten. But now, as Jerry says, ‘the time has come.’ What we’d like to do is to form a club from a certain number of girls in the senior class. It mustn’t be just a social affair but one devoted to the purpose of looking out for anyone that needs our help. Of course when first we start we won’t be able to do much. Later we may find it in our power to do a good deal.”
“And if the club’s a success,” interposed Jerry, “Marjorie thinks it would be nice to pass it along, name and all, to the next senior class. Then they could will it to the next and so on. It would be a sorority, only I hope you won’t go and burden it with a Greek letter name. We ought to give it a name that would mean a lot to anyone who happens to hear of it.” Despite her insistence that Marjorie should put forward the project, Jerry could not resist having her say, too.
“That’s a fine idea,” glowed Harriet Delaney. “How many girls ought we to have in it?”
“I should think ten or twelve would be enough to start with,” returned Marjorie meditatively. “If we decide later that we need more we can have the pleasure of initiating them. Has anyone of you a pencil and paper?”
Muriel immediately brought forth a notebook from her leather school bag. Susan Atwell promptly produced the required pencil.
“Write on the back page of it, Marjorie,” directed Muriel. “If you put down our illustrious names anywhere else in the book, I am likely to mix them with my zoology notes.”
“Imagine Muriel standing up in class and innocently reading: ‘To the Crustacean family belong Jerry Macy, Marjorie Dean, Harriet Delaney, etc.,’” giggled Susan Atwell. Whereupon a ripple of giggles swept the zealous organizers.
“Let me see.” Turning obediently to the last leaf of the notebook Marjorie glanced about the circle and began to write. “We are seven,” she commented after a moment. “Now for the others. Esther Lind, Rita Talbot and Daisy Griggs, of course. That makes ten. I’d like to ask Lucy Warner. Have you any objections?” Marjorie had resolved to overlook Lucy’s recent cavalier treatment of herself.
No one objected and Lucy’s name went down on the list.
“We ought to ask Veronica,” reminded